Democracy

Harvard for Tyrants
Foreign Policy
by Douglas Farah

Published on March 4th, 2011
Col. Muammar al-Qaddafi is well known now for the abuses he has inflicted on his own people during more than four decades of brutal rule in Libya, but few remember the vast campaign of carnage and terrorism he orchestrated across West Africa and Europe when he was at the height of his powers.  Nor are his more recent alliance with Hugo Chávez of Venezuela and his long-standing relationship with Daniel Ortega of Nicaragua -- both of whom are busy trampling their constitutions and moving toward dictatorship -- well understood. The ties that bind Qaddafi to some of the world's most repressive regimes and armed movements began in the 1980s, when he was regarded as one of the premier terrorist threats in the world. Flush with oil money, Qaddafi orchestrated a training campaign for those who became the most brutal warlords in much of Africa, a legacy that has left the region crippled and unstable today.

Organized Crime in El Salvador: The Homegrown and Transnational Dimensions
Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars
by Douglas Farah

Published on February 1st, 2011
When El Salvador's brutal civil war ended in a negotiated settlement in 1992 after 12 years and some 75,000 dead, it was widely hoped that the peace agreements would usher in a new era of democratic governance, rule of law, and economic growth. Yet today El Salvador is a crucial part of a transnational “pipeline” or series of overlapping, recombinant chains of actors and routes that transnational criminal organizations use to move illicit products, money, weapons, personnel, and goods. The results are devastating and wide-ranging in the Massachusetts-sized country, and are a key part of the crisis of governance and rule of law crippling the Central American region and Mexico.

Winds From the East: How the People’s Republic of China Seeks to Influence the Media in Africa, Latin America, and Southeast Asia
A Report to the Center for International Media Assistance
by Douglas Farah, Andy Mosher

Published on September 8th, 2010
The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is using various components of public diplomacy to influence the media in Latin America, Africa, and Southeast Asia. China’s primary purposes appear to be to present China as a reliable friend and partner, as well as to make sure that China’s image in the developing world is positive. As part of its efforts to do this, the Chinese government seeks to fundamentally reshape much of the world’s media in its own image, away from a watchdog stance toward the government to one where the government’s interests are the paramount concern in deciding what to disseminate.

Transnational Drug Enterprises: Threats to Global Stability and U.S. National Security from Southwest Asia, Latin America and West Africa
Testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform
by Douglas Farah

Published on October 1st, 2009
What we are seeing in the era of globalization, is that flexible criminal and terrorist pipelines -- where key facilitators are vital to the operations of both sets of actors -- are highly adaptable and forward thinking. These pipelines or recombinant chains of actors and commodities now have the ability to move goods, both licit and illicit, around the globe to wherever the environment is most hospitable and tolerant. While by far the most lucrative commodities in the pipeline are cocaine and heroin, the same pipelines serve weapons traffickers, human smugglers, fraud and contraband.

Confronting Drug Trafficking in West Africa
Tesimony Before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
by Douglas Farah

Published on June 23rd, 2009
The movement of drugs, particularly cocaine, through West Africa is the product of several developments in the overall drug trade, and the consequences are already devastating, as shown by the new wave of political instability and the creation of the continent's first true "narco-states." As the trafficking grows, so will the havoc wreaked on weak states in West Africa--many of which are only now emerging from decades of chaos and unspeakable violence and are ill prepared to face the new challenges.

Money Laundering and Bulk Cash Smuggling: Challenges for the U.S.-Mexico Border
by Douglas Farah

Published on June 19th, 2009
Bulk cash smuggling across the U.S.-Mexico border cannot be viewed in isolation. Rather, the process of illegally moving large quantities of dollars across the border must be viewed as part of the movements in a larger pipeline that flows across the northern tier of South America, through Central America and Mexico and into the United States. The pipeline, fed by many smaller feeder lines, moves products both north and south, and the a significant portion of the violence in Mexico today, as well as among the maras in Central America, revolves around disputes over control of portions of that pipeline, its plazas and branches. The primary goods flowing northward are cocaine, human traffic, gang members hired by the drug cartels as enforcers, and marijuana. The primary products moving south are large amounts of cash generated from the illicit activities, stolen cars and other goods, and weapons. It is important to understand that all of these products move through the same basic architecture and rely on many of the same facilitators to enable the flow of goods and services.

Terrorism Reaches China
by Arthur Waldron, Ph.D

Published on March 29th, 2009
Last week the overseas Chinese newspapers were full of violent stories, mostly about the killing of officials in several localities by angry people. Simple content analysis of the media makes clear that the level of reported violence is rising, which in turn almost certainly reflects a real increase in incidence. All forms of violence worry the regime, but none perhaps more than terrorism, particularly that by oppressed non-Chinese groups such as the Tibetans. Now that nightmare may be in the process of becoming real.

Conflict Prevention and Confidence Building Measures between Japan and China
by Vice Admiral (Ret.) Fumio Ota Ph.D.

Published on January 5th, 2009
Chinese leaders always say to Japanese leaders that Japan should look at history as a mirror. It means that Japan should not forget her brutal actions against China during the Sino-Japanese conflict in the late 1930s and the beginning of the 1940s. However, since this period Japan and China have changed considerably. Today, the China is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and the Japan is democracy.  While history should not be forgotten, we must also judge a country by its current actions. A recent survey of world public opinion from 2005 to 2007 found that Japan is the country most widely viewed as having a positive influence, which is helped by the fact that Japan  has never used military power as a means for settling international conflicts after 1945. Since the People's Republic of China was established in 1949, the frequency of its use of military forces reaches the double digits.  On average, China has used military power every several years. In all cases, except for its support of North Vietnam’s war against South Vietnam, China has used force preemptively. China attacked the opponent first after careful preparation, whereas the opponent suffered from a surprise attack.

Post Olympic Prospects
by Arthur Waldron, Ph.D

Published on August 25th, 2008
Cleaning up after the party often reveals a lot, and the world situation post Beijing Olympics is no exception. Let’s start with China, not forgetting, however, that the unexpected Georgia crisis effectively drove the Olympic events out of the headlines.  The story-board before the games began was essentially this: long humiliated and poor, China is announcing her return to the world stage in style, with the most lavish Olympics ever staged, featuring venues of the purest ultra-modern architecture, a multi media opening that will outshine anything seen before, the deployment for the first time of superb Chinese athletic talent garnering more gold medals than anyone, foreign heads of state making the trip who conspicuously had scheduling conflicts when it came to Athens--and lest anyone see it all as orchestrated or regimented, the whole package done up in the finest human rights rhetoric, with promises of full internet access and even an officially recognized right to protest.

China’s Military Employment of American Dual-Use Technologies
by Richard Fisher, Jr.

Published on August 1st, 2008
On June 5, 1989 President George H.W. Bush announced the United States suspension of sales of items on the U.S. munitions list, or an arms embargo, in response to the June 3-4 Tiananmen Massacre in Beijing, China. In 1990 this policy was codified by the U.S. Congress. But almost from its inception successive American presidents have made exceptions to this law, primarily by issuing wavers to allow the purchase of Chinese satellite launch services. In addition, by the mid-1990s the U.S. Commerce Department has allowed a growing trade in so-called "dual-use" items that may have a military use but are not weapons in and of themselves.